DEVELOPMENT OF ALPHABET BLOCK MEDIA FOR BEGINNING READING LEARNING IN CLASS I ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Sofiandira, Vegi Teria. 2022. Development of Alphabet Block Media for Beginning Reading Learning in Grade 1 Elementary School Elementary School Teacher Education Study Program Teaching Faculty of Education Science Balitar Islamic University Advisor (I) Desy Anindia, M.Pd.I. Advisor (II) Sripit Widiastuti, S.Pd,. M.Pd. This research has a background in the low ability to recognize students' letters with low interest in reading as well, so additional learning media is needed besides books and worksheets that are commonly used in schools. The purpose of this study was to show the feasibility of the media and to find out the readability of teachers and students towards alphabet block media in the ability to recognize letters, so as to be able to develop early reading skills in grade 1 elementary school children. Data collection techniques by conducting questionnaire observations and interviews using the Research and development (R & D) method approach with 7 research steps. Data collection was carried out on 60 grade 1 elementary school students in 3 schools, namely SDN Sidorejo 01, SDN Doko 01 and SDN Doko 02 along with their class teachers. The results of the feasibility analysis of the media through 3 validators obtained a percentage with an average value of 94.29%, material and language experts obtained a percentage with an average value of 95.00%. From the results of the media feasibility analysis by 3 media expert validators, 3 material and language expert validators on product development which were then tested by conducting field practice to analyze the readability of teachers and students towards the media as teaching materials for beginning reading learning materials. In the teacher readability test, the results obtained were 93.94% & student readability was 90.44% with a very decent category. The results of the validation and readability stated that the alphabet block learning media was included in the very feasible criteria with an achievement level of 81% - 100%.


INTRODUCTION
Education is one of the individual efforts to develop all the potential that exists in him in terms of intelligence, skills, knowledge, personality and the beginning of success.The role of education is very important in creating quality human beings in order to achieve national development goals and teachers or educators are one of the determining factors.
Reading is the basic foundation in the world of education so that reading activities need to be instilled from an early age so that children are accustomed to and can obtain the information contained in a reading material.Low reading ability can have an impact on low writing productivity.
Beginning reading ability is a very important provision for everyone to increase knowledge and insight.Through reading students can increase vocabulary, increase students' ability to speak, increase motivation, creativity and also affect the character of student development.Reading skill is an aspect that is inseparable from life so reading ability is said to be important because students are directly related to all learning processes in schools (Rahman & Haryanto, 2014) According to Könings, Brand-Gruwel, & Van Merriënboer (2005), the use of media in learning as a teaching aid also influences the conditions and learning environment that are designed and created by a teacher so that it creates excitement in learning that allows direct interaction between students and learning objects so that children can learn through their own will.
According to (Triyantono, Raharjo, & Rusilowati, 2021), block letter media is an educational game that serves to introduce letters, block letters are games made of blocks containing letters of the alphabet and block letters are carried out while playing so that children don't feel bored and always want to learn about the letters of the alphabet., learning letter block media should be carried out while playing so that children don't feel bored and want to always learn to learn letters.
According to Zulfa (2020), in Indonesian class 1 SD lessons, students must be introduced to various kinds of letters, one of which is the letters of the alphabet and introduce the 14 letters of the alphabet in the first stage of introducing 14 letters, including a, b, c, d, e, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, s, t, u.Knowing the letters of the alphabet is very important to support development, especially the reading development of 1st grade students.
The results of the analysis of the reading interest questionnaire at SDN Sidorejo 01, Doko 02, Doko 01 which was carried out in December 2021 showed conditions in the field based on observations of elementary schools in Blitar district through questionnaires on students' reading interest and interviews with elementary school teachers, it was found that out of 60 students 30 students could not read with low reading interest, 20 students could not read fluently with moderate reading interest and 10 students read fluently with high reading interest.
Factors that cause students not to read fluently include students who are bored in terms of reading because the learning media used are only books including textbooks and printed books, students at home are not paid enough attention by their parents so they prefer playing gadgets and not learning to read which results in students not being able to read (Intansari, Sofiyana, & Sholihah, 2021;Sari, Fauzi, & Primasari, 2020) .
From the results of the questionnaire and interview analysis, it is necessary to develop alphabet block media to increase students' interest in reading when learning Indonesian takes place.
Based on the background above, the researcher focused his research on a study on the development of alphabet block letters media for learning to read beginning as a solution to help problems that exist in learning to read at the beginning of elementary school students.Application of interactive learning media blocks in improving students' literacy skills in grade 1 Indonesian language lessons MIN 9 Banda Aceh City.shows that there is an improvement in each cycle of students' initial reading fluency through the medium of letter blocks.In teacher activities and student learning activities with the use of letter block media has increased.

Research Approach and Design
This a process used to develop and validate educational products.The steps of this process are usually referred to as the R&D cycle, which consists of studying research findings related to the product to be developed, developing a product based on these findings, field testing in the setting where it will be used eventually, and revising it to correct deficiencies.found in the stage of submitting the test

Research Framework and Procedures
According to (Sugiyono, 2013).The steps in the 10-step R and D research include:

RESULTS
The development of the Alphabet Block developed by the researcher has gone through the validation and revision stages by 6 validators consisting of 3 material and language experts and 3 media experts.The results of the researcher's development are in the form of alphabet block media to show the feasibility of the media and determine the legibility of students and teachers so that the media can be used for beginning reading in grade 1 elementary school, for the media in the form of non-digital media and alphabet block media equipped with starting reading material.
The results of the validation by material and language experts stated that the media was very suitable for use.The content of the material is in accordance with the level of thinking of students, the language used is straightforward and easy to understand.This means that the initial reading material is in accordance with learning to read in the first grade of elementary school.Based on the results of the media expert validation, the alphabet block learning media for reading at the beginning of the 1st grade class was declared very suitable for use as a learning medium with the right media size, durability and easy-to-read fonts.This is also in accordance with the opinion of Levio and Lentz (as cited in Arsyad, 2011) who reveal that visual symbols or images facilitate the purpose of understanding and remembering the information and messages contained in images, visual media (images) can also make it easier for children who are learning or reading texts.with pictures, this block media can make it easier for children to learn to read because pictures are the right visual media used by teachers to convey learning.
After the validation stage was carried out by 3 material and language experts and 3 media experts whose results were declared very feasible with an achievement level of 81% -100%, in stage 1 the material and language expert validation with an average percentage of 83.81% in stage 2 became 94.29% while for experts media in stage 1 reached an average percentage of In the readability test, the teacher shows the alphabet block media, which after showing the alphabet blocks gives a readability questionnaire to fill out.From the results of the teacher's legibility questionnaire, it obtained a percentage of 93.44% and was declared very suitable for use as a learning medium.The results of the teacher trial stated that the alphabet block media was able to simplify and clarify the material, the color composition used was attractive, easy to operate and use the media.Learning to read is the main focus in learning in the early elementary school classes.According to Pang, Muaka, Bernhardt, & Kamil (2003), learning to read is related to building students' phonemic awareness, reading fluency and recognition of the words used.Efforts that can be made by the teacher in supporting students to master reading skills are by involving students in the pronunciation of familiar vocabulary sounds, sufficient repetition of words and placing relatively low demands on word comprehension.The success of reading skills is influenced by a supportive learning environment.This shows that the existence of media that is relevant to student development can increase student motivation in reading.

DISCUSSION
After the validation stage was carried out by 3 material and language experts and 3 media experts whose results were declared very feasible with an achievement level of 81% -100%, in stage 1 the material and language expert validation with an average percentage of 83  , 2014:4).The initial reading competence is the basis for students to be able to read at an advanced stage.
In the readability test, the teacher shows the alphabet block media, which after showing the alphabet blocks gives a readability questionnaire to fill out.From the results of the teacher's legibility questionnaire, it obtained a percentage of 93.44% and was declared very suitable for use as a learning medium.The results of the teacher trial stated that the alphabet block media was able to simplify and clarify the material, the color composition used was attractive, easy to operate and use the media.Learning to read is the main focus in learning in the early elementary school classes.According to Pang et al. (2003), learning to read is related to building students' phonemic awareness, reading fluency and recognition of the words used.Efforts that can be made by the teacher in supporting students to master reading skills are by involving students in the pronunciation of familiar vocabulary sounds, sufficient repetition of words and placing relatively low demands on word comprehension.The success of reading skills is influenced by a supportive learning environment.This shows that the existence of media that is relevant to student development can increase student motivation in reading.

CONCLUSION
In this study alphabet block media as a learning medium in helping teachers and students to read beginning is said to be feasible at stage 2 with validation results from material and language experts with a percentage value of 94.29% with a very feasible category and validation results from media experts with a percentage value of 95.00% also with very decent category The product trial conducted on grade 1 students at SDN Sidorejo 1 further strengthened the results of the eligibility validation of the media where the readability results of the student questionnaire obtained a percentage of 90.44% which were stated to be very suitable for use while the results of the teacher's questionnaire readability obtained a percentage of 93.44% which were also stated.
From the validation and trials it can be concluded that the alphabet block media is declared very feasible to be used as a learning medium for beginning reading in grade 1 elementary school

A.3. Product Trials
a.Forward Results of playing words from medium blocks of alphabet level easily b.Going forward results playing a word from a medium-level alphabet block study uses a Research and Development (R & D) approach, namely the process or steps to develop a new product or improve an existing product, the product in question is learning media in the form of blocks of alphabet letters.According to Souder, Sherman, & Davies-Cooper (1998).Research and Development (R&D) is an effort or activity to develop an effective product for school use, and not to test theory.Meanwhile, Borg and Gall (1983 as cited in Aka, 2019) define development research as 84.17% in stage 2 to 95.00%.The next stage was a limited trial at SDN Sidorejo 01, an readability trial was conducted to determine the legibility of using alphabet block media for reading at the beginning of grade 1 SD.The readability test was carried out in class 1 by 10 elementary school students, 3 teachers at Sidorejo 01 Elementary School.The student readability test was carried out by showing the alphabet block media where students filled out the readability questionnaire, from the results of the student readability questionnaire, a percentage of 90.44% was obtained and was stated to be very suitable for use.The results of the student trials stated that the presentation in alphabet block media could help students read the beginning and the use of Indonesian was in accordance with the EYD.The development of reading skills in early grade students is carried out in stages.The initial reading competencies developed include recognizing letter sounds, reading words by connecting letter sounds, recognizing written concepts, reading fluently, developing vocabulary, strategies for reading comprehension, and motivation in reading (USAID, 2014: 4).The initial reading competence is the basis for students to be able to read at an advanced stage.The results of the student trials stated that the presentation in alphabet block media could help students read the beginning and the use of Indonesian was in accordance with the EYD.The development of reading skills in early grade students is carried out in stages.The initial reading competencies developed include recognizing letter sounds, reading words by connecting letter sounds, recognizing written concepts, reading fluently, developing vocabulary, strategies for reading comprehension, and motivation in reading(USAID, 2014: 4).The initial reading competence is the basis for students to be able to read at an advanced stage.The results of the student trials stated that the presentation in alphabet block media could help students read the beginning and the use of Indonesian was in accordance with the EYD.The development of reading skills in early grade students is carried out in stages.The initial reading competencies developed include recognizing letter sounds, reading words by connecting letter sounds, recognizing written concepts, reading fluently, developing vocabulary, strategies for reading comprehension, and motivation in reading(USAID, 2014: 4).The initial reading competence is the basis for students to be able to read at an advanced stage.recognize written concepts, read fluently, develop vocabulary, strategies for reading comprehension, and motivation in reading (USAID, 2014:4).The initial reading competence is the basis for students to be able to read at an advanced stage.recognize written concepts, read fluently, develop vocabulary, strategies for reading comprehension, and motivation in reading (USAID, 2014:4).The initial reading competence is the basis for students to be able to read at an advanced stage.
Figure 3.1 Research and Development Procedures for Block Alphabet Mediaactivity for children, this program is attention to complete, meaningful words in the personal context of children and materials provided through interesting games and activities as a learning medium.so it is important that the intermediary is interesting and easy to understand.

Table 1 .
Results of the study.Tabel 4.2 Material and Language Assessment Stage 2 .81% in stage 2 became 94.29% while for experts media in stage 1 reached an average percentage of 84.17% in stage 2 to 95.00%.The next stage was a limited trial at SDN Sidorejo 01, an readability trial was conducted to determine the legibility of using alphabet block media for reading at the beginning of grade 1 SD.The readability test was carried out in class 1 by 10 elementary school students, 3 teachers at Sidorejo 01 Elementary School.The student readability test was carried out by showing the alphabet block media where students filled out the readability questionnaire, from the results of the student readability questionnaire, a percentage of 90.44% was obtained and was stated to be very suitable for use.The results of the student trials stated that the presentation in alphabet block media could help students read the beginning and the use of Indonesian was in accordance with the EYD.The development of reading skills in early grade students is carried out in stages.The initial reading competencies The initial reading competence is the basis for students to be able to read at an advanced stage.recognize written concepts, read fluently, develop vocabulary, strategies for reading comprehension, and motivation in reading (USAID, 2014:4).The initial reading competence is the basis for students to be able to read at an advanced stage.recognize